In recent years, liquid crystal displays (LCDs), and other flat panel display devices, have become increasingly popular as mechanisms for displaying information to operators of vehicles, such as aircraft. One of the reasons for this is that LCDs are capable of providing very bright and clear images that are easily seen by the user, even in high ambient light situations, such as daytime flight.
Conventional active matrix (AM) LCDs use spatial averaging of the pixels to generate full color from three different colors (e.g., red, green, and blue (RGB)) of light emitters, such as light emitting diodes (LEDs), along with an array of color filters. However, approximately two-thirds of the available backlight power is often absorbed by a color filter array which significantly impairs power efficiency. This loss of power efficiency leads to thermal management being a significant issue in conventional LCD displays for applications requiring high display luminance.
Recently, field sequential color (FSC) displays have been developed for use with various image sources, such as LCDs, cathode ray tubes (CRTs), liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS), and digital micro-mirrors (DMMs). FSC displays do not use color filters and yet generate full color by sequentially writing each pixel in the display in conjunction with sequentially switching RGB emitters in the backlight. Full color is generated at each pixel by temporally averaging the RGB emissions of each pixel. Because color filters are not required, the power consumption is greatly reduced, which often eliminates the need for active cooling of the display in high luminance applications. Additionally, display resolution is effectively tripled when compared with conventional LCDs, as full color may be generated at each individual pixel, rather than using multiple pixels in combination.
However, there still are several limitations to FSC displays. For one, FSC displays provide little or no dimming capability, which prevents FSC displays from being used in a myriad of military and avionics display applications where a dimming ratio of 2000:1, or more, is typically required. A second limitation of the current FSC displays is color instability over a wide range of operating temperatures. The light emitting components (e.g., LEDs) exhibit large color shifts over extended operating temperature ranges and drive conditions.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a method and system for improving performance in a FSC display device, such as improving dimming and color performance over a wide range of temperatures and drive conditions. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description of the invention and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background of the invention.